The Nature of Home

During High Point Market, Jeffrey Dungan signed The Nature of Home: Creating Timeless Houses, his new book published by Rizzoli, in the Currey & Company showroom. We were so smitten with the gorgeous projects we knew it would be an excellent fit to share with our readers, in particular because the elemental beauty of each building and space Jeffrey designed echoes the aesthetic with which we infuse the furniture we produce.

Wood and woods figure significantly in Dungan’s milieu, the opening salvo of the book John Muir’s premise that “the clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness,” which Jeffrey notes has always struck a deep chord within him. He shares with readers his explorations of his family’s farm in Alabama as a boy, venturing out alone in the mornings into “the quiet majesty and vast power of nature.” The entire book is just as compelling and you can feel by his careful consideration of each natural element in each landscape that he adopted many of the forms that were imprinted on his young mind in his design concepts.

“Timelessness may be a quality difficult to define, but we know it when we see it,” he says. “It has to do with honesty and integrity…” These words are illustrated by the matte luster of planed wood and the textural interplay of grouted stone. Windows act as the souls into the room, carrying illumination into his spaces as shadows wander in and out with the movement of the sun.

“I have had a lifelong love affair with the land,” he declares. “It isn’t something you learn from books. As far as I can tell, the feeling is steeped into me from my experiences of youth on a farm.” He adds that the land has a powerful momentum. “It creates drama with its views. It rolls. It rises. It falls. In life, I cannot ignore it. In architecture, I must honor it.” And this, he does. 

His fascination as he is first approaching a project is the “sweet spot” pertaining to views, which he calls “immediate and profound,” adding it is “a magical kind of experience.” This is born out in the pages of the book that hold expanses of rippling water, undulations of marsh grasses, scrubby swaths of sand pocked with sea oats, and grassy fields that stretch to the horizon. Though he maintains design is a search for limits, the landscapes he frames with the spaces he creates open the discipline to boundless energy.

In project after project, there is a soulfulness created by elemental materials, meandering archways and striations of light, to which he devotes an entire chapter. “Understanding the arc of the sun’s path across what we will build is critical to the process of determining how best to place and lay out the architecture,” he explains. “That same knowledge affects the organization of the interiors in a pivotal way, for it will define everything from how gently the homeowners will wake up in the morning to whether or not their rooms will still be enjoyable when they have the heat of western or southern exposures.”

His keen ability to harness a quality of light that reads as ethereal makes illumination a veritable character in the book. It acts its part within an oculus window, dark like the unblinking eye of a bird, set within a white wall that mimics the hues of wispy clouds floating nearby. It brings a feeling of warmth as the sun strikes stone gathered beneath a cantilevered roof made of wood that seems to be attempting to outreach the column supporting it for its share of the heat.

In the final chapter he shares his journey in designing his own home—a process that began with the question “What do I want?” The answers were varied—a simple structure with a petite footprint flooded with light, welcoming living spaces, a repository for beauty: a retreat. “From such a lofty perch, I could see the curvature of the earth and the city below, and dream.” We’d like to thank Jeffrey for sharing that dream with us, as it has buoyed us up as we have lived inside his imagination for a fleeting moment.